


Lost In Translation

by Holly (spaciousbear)



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Fluff and Angst, Language Barrier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2019-08-21 10:39:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16574861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spaciousbear/pseuds/Holly
Summary: Love is a language you don't need words to speak. Words do, however, help clarify some of the finer points.(Or, a series of moments from Eiji Okumura's life in New York.)A set of short stories about language and communication. WARNING: Spoilers for the end of the manga and Garden of Light!





	1. Rim Shot

**Author's Note:**

> While it's downplayed a bit in the anime, I've always thought the theme of communication in Banana Fish was interesting, especially with the language barrier Eiji occasionally faces. This story is presented in "chapters" but they're all separate stories linked by this particular idea.

It was no easy task to discern the time while crammed into the back of that truck, but when Eiji opened a bleary eye, he was fairly certain it was still quite early. Still, the soft murmur of voices drifted past him, letting him know that Ash and Shorter were already awake.

Eiji closed his eyes again, exhausted by the days of travel behind them. The truck rumbled with an uncomfortable lurch as they passed over - a pothole? Some roadkill? Either way, it highlighted the sore muscles Eiji had from the strain of the past week. It didn’t take long for Ash to notice his slight movement, glancing over in his direction with a small smile.

“Awake, Eiji?”

“Um, yes. Just now.”

“It’s still dark out, you should get some more sleep,” Ash said, and Eiji was tempted to comply, but his curiosity won out instead and he lifted his head from his makeshift pillow to answer.

“You are both awake early. What are you doing?”

“Oh, you know,” Shorter said as he flashed an airy, careless smile in Eiji’s direction. “Just shooting the breeze. Not with an actual gun, I promise.” His smile turned into a grin and Eiji sunk a little bit into his sweatshirt, glaring over the fabric at Shorter’s jovial expression.

“I know that,” he said with a dull, sleep-blurred edge to his voice.

Eiji would be the first to admit that American slang was not his strength. Ash and Shorter would easily be the second and third ones to admit that, considering how much they enjoyed prodding at Eiji every time he even mildly misunderstood one. It didn’t take them long to figure out, from there, that if they wanted to keep Eiji from knowing what they were talking about, all they had to do was more heavily rely on slang he hadn’t learned yet and to code their wording a little more carefully. Like Eiji was a small child and his parents were spelling out the word “candy” in front of him. It was humiliating.

Eiji was beginning to suspect that Shorter, in particular, was just stringing together random English words that didn’t actually mean anything when put together.

Ash smiled at the joke, not unkindly, but the arched eyebrow and amused look in his eye told Eiji a sharper, biting comment was incoming.

“Hey Shorter, don’t tease him too much. He can’t help his remedial English skills.”

“I know more English than you know Japanese,” Eiji huffed. Ash, maybe sensing that he was approaching the limit of Eiji’s patience, laughed softly.

“Yeah, I guess that’s true.”

“You think you are very funny,” Eiji said, emboldened rather than calmed by Ash’s admission, his words filtering through the small pout souring his expression. He sat up in his spot, eager to stretch his sore muscles. “Always teasing me. Maybe everything you say should be followed by…” Eiji trailed off, his mind going blank. What a time to lose track of the term he was looking for, when he really wanted to make a point. Even worse, he could hear the sound effect in his mind, the rolling drum and cymbal crash that followed any punchline a comedian said.

“Rim job?” He was pretty sure that was right.

Half a second of silence passed before Shorter burst out into laughter, almost choking on the sudden gasp. Eiji was now pretty sure he had _not_ used the right words. Ash didn’t react outwardly and stared at Eiji as his face turned increasingly red, finally turning his look of disbelief over to Shorter, who was doubled over in laughter now. Ash looked back to Eiji, his teeth gritted, and pushed his hair back from his scarlet face.

“Eiji… I don’t think you meant to say that.”

“Yes, I am aware,” Eiji said miserably, his eyes wandering away from Ash to Shorter’s figure, still shaking with laughter. Too embarrassed to face either one of them, he looked away and cursed in Japanese. It only took Ash a moment to recover, his mind visibly working out a way to save them both from the awkward situation; it seemed he couldn’t be caught off-guard for too long.

“Don’t worry about it, it happens,” Ash said, his reassuring words colored with an amused smirk. He nudged at Shorter, who had finally quieted. “When I first met Shorter’s sister, he told me it would be rude not to greet her in Chinese - thanks to him, I know how to tell someone to fuck their ancestors in Cantonese. What a first impression I must have made.”

“That’s a true story,” Shorter said, smiling fondly at the memory. “Nadia knew it was my fault and yelled at me anyway, but it was worth it.” Eiji let out a quiet laugh, eased by the mental image.

“So then, what does it mean?” Eiji asked, shooting a wide-eyed look at Ash. He had a vague sense it was a curse of some kind, though he wasn’t quite sure how bad.

“Forget about it,” Ash sputtered, a small amount of color returning to his face. “It’s not something you’d ever need to know.” Eiji frowned, unsatisfied. It was obviously something that Ash didn’t want to explain, which suggested it wasn’t simply a curse word - maybe something dirty? Eiji felt a bit of embarrassment rise in him again, but couldn’t help but press the issue; it was so rare to see Ash this flustered and Eiji had to admit he was enjoying himself a little bit. If nothing else, he wanted to enjoy the panicked flush in his cheeks for a moment longer.

“But I am remedial English speaker,” Eiji said with a sigh. “It helps if you explain my mistake. In detail.”

Shorter was the first one to catch the small glimmer of mischief in his eye.

“I can see why you like him so much,” he said to Ash, his tone both impressed and sincere.

Eiji hadn’t thought that Ash’s face could have gotten any redder than it was before, but he had apparently underestimated him. He wasn’t sure if it was a commotion of anger or embarrassment that followed, but Eiji never did find out the meaning of the word he used.


	2. Pillow Talk

Eiji didn’t talk in his sleep all too frequently but Ash found that he was awfully chatty when he did. It was always in Japanese, of course, so Ash had little context for the things he was saying other than the tone of his voice and the movements he made in the shadows of their shared space.

Ash had gotten good at noticing these things. Somehow, perhaps without even realizing it himself, he’d managed to learn the language Eiji spoke without words.

Usually it was something mundane - an excess of the every day Japanese building up in his mind from lack of use. The exhaustive effort of translating his thoughts into English slipping back into the familiar comfort of his own native words. When this happened, Ash watched as he mumbled for a few moments, usually rolling back over into contentment shortly after, his face a peaceful portrait of his quiet dreaming. Ash pictured him then, his daily routine in Japan, the life he’d once led and the people who populated it - the people who he must have spoken to in these dreams. Did the words roll off his tongue when speaking with a classmate? Remembering an argument with his sister? Was he still apologizing to some old lady he bumped into at the supermarket years ago? For all he could infer, there was still so much he didn’t know.

Rarely, Eiji would tremble and whimper with the remnant of some unpleasant nightmare. Ash didn’t have to hear any more to understand when those were happening - he had an intimate understanding of nightmares, of waking up in a cold terror you couldn’t control. In those moments, Ash hoped that these were also mundane for Eiji - some small, harmless childhood fear that crept into his dreams unannounced. Ash knew that was better than the alternative and far more likely scenario, that his captivity in Golzine’s mansion, the image of Shorter’s death - these things had left scars on Eiji’s kind soul and would continue to haunt him.

But one night in particular, it was neither one of these. Eiji’s mouth was curved into a soft, barely there smile and he said only a few soft words in Japanese. It was… almost soothing. Ash turned aside in his own bed, his back to Eiji. As long as he was enjoying his dream, it seemed like the least he could do to allow him the moment.

“Ash…”

Ash tensed briefly at the sound of his name, a glance back to Eiji’s bed confirming that the boy was still asleep.

“Eiji…?” he asked, his voice quiet but loud enough to be heard if Eiji was, in fact, awake. He received no response.

The incident had seemed entirely ordinary by the time daylight came, but for the next few days, Ash ruminated over Eiji’s words. He memorized the sounds as best he could and turned them over in his mind. He didn’t want to ask Eiji about it - whatever it was, it wasn’t something he had said consciously, it seemed unfair to spring it on him perhaps to his own confusion or embarrassment.

It was quiet in the library. Ash sat nestled away in corner that didn’t seem particularly special, but where the light was perfect for a long day of poring over his books and he could easily see the entryway, alert to anyone who may be approaching. Eiji was scoping out lunch for them and Ash’s stomach gave a familiar impatient lurch as he hoped that he wouldn’t choose anything too adventurous. The moment should have been peaceful enough.

He had shifted his focus, pulling up articles on one of the computers available, but Ash couldn’t concentrate on the words in front of him. His thoughts were disorganized, scattered and fraying, like the letters were jumbling in front of his eyes to spell out the words he’d heard Eiji mumbling.

Perhaps the only way to excise the distraction was to confront it. He opened a new search and punched the letters into it, trying to create the closest approximation of what he’d heard. The results that came up seemed mostly wrong. He must have misunderstood him somewhere, or maybe he’d forgotten what he’d heard in the intervening days. He found himself trying as many variations as he could think of, each iteration both bringing him closer to his intended query and bringing him more frustration.

Finally, he found it. His eyes scanned the text, certain that it matched the words he heard, and searched for its meaning.

Whatever he was expecting, it certainly wasn’t… _that_.

“Hey Ash,” Eiji said as he approached the table, his tone cheerful, and Ash closed the window quickly with an accompanying cough, the sudden noise drawing a few unsubtle glares from the other patrons. Ash raised his defenses again instinctively - he had let himself get distracted.

“Eiji,” he said, his voice lowered into a whisper to avoid more attention.

“What do you think about ramen today?” Eiji asked, a tinge of hope apparent in his words. His mouth was drawn back in a not-quite smile, and Ash was reminded of why he had let his guard down, however briefly. When Eiji spoke, his voice was not the kind of voice that would say… well, _that_.

“Uh, whatever you want. I’m up for… anything. I could use a break, actually.”

They walked from the library together towards where Kong and Bones would be waiting, and the quiet lingered between them for a moment; Ash was tempted to cough, do anything to break the tension Eiji seemed blissfully unaware of. Eiji, however, was the first one to speak.

“I had a strange dream last night,” he said, looking ahead, almost wistful. Ash stared at him; it had been days since Ash had overheard him speaking, he couldn’t possibly be referring to the same incident. Still, it was like a thought had been plucked right out of his own mind, or rather that it had been somehow understood. He tried not to wonder why Eiji was bringing this up just now.

“Oh? What was it about?”

“Hmmm. Nothing really. Normal things.” Eiji paused there. “But it was in English. That has never happened to me before. Usually in dreams, everyone speaks Japanese.”

Ash thought of the bright and varied cast of characters in Eiji’s life, in his dreams, all of the possibilities in the statement.

“Even me?” his question was seeking, but not too much. Eiji turned to look at him then, and with the impact of his bright smile it felt like Eiji could peer right through him.

“Yes, Ash, even you.”


	3. Kanpai

It was Ash’s idea to begin with.

Eiji had offered to pick up beer for the two of them, and Ash had made that face. It was too easily readable for Eiji to ignore, a pouty scowl he knew he’d have to deal with one way or another. He paused when he reached the door and let his hand rest on the handle.

“What is it? What is the problem?”

“Nothing.” A beat of silence. “You always get that weird Japanese beer,” Ash’s voice trailed off, the implication hanging there.

“You do not like it? It’s good! Best in Japan - I’m very happy to see it in America,” Eiji grinned at him - if Ash was going to pout, he’d have to make his complaint directly.

“It tastes like piss,” Ash said without hesitation.

“You think your American stuff is better?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Maybe you just have terrible taste,” Eiji said, in mock defense. Ash pushed himself up off the sofa, past where Eiji was standing and into the kitchen.

“Nevermind that, I’ve got a better idea.”

Eiji heard a bit of rifling through the kitchen cabinets, the clinking of glasses. Sighing, he moved to sit back down, unsure what exactly Ash had meant. It didn’t take him long to return, one large bottle in his hand, filled with a brown liquid that definitely wasn’t beer.

“Whiskey. Max loves this stuff,” Ash explained as he poured two small glasses out for them.

Eiji picked up his glass and sniffed at it - it seemed strong, way stronger than anything he’d had before. He took a tentative sip and coughed almost immediately, to which Ash gave a soft chuckle.

“Probably better not to sip at it, this is pretty cheap.” With that, Ash threw back the glass, swallowing the liquid all in one go. Eiji watched him, wide-eyed and impressed before tossing back his own drink in an attempted imitation. The burn filled his throat and he choked back another cough as his eyes watered. He could feel Ash’s eyes on him as he poured himself another; bashful and not to be outdone by someone two years his junior, Eiji reached over with his own glass to accept more as well.

The second glass hit Eiji harder than the first - in a short time, he felt a warm flush heating his cheeks, his head light and airy and careless. Laughter came easy and without much prompting, his jovial giggle carrying throughout the apartment as the night progressed. He might have had more to drink, though at this point he wasn’t entirely sure.

“Eiji, are you… drunk already?” Ash mused through a smirk. He was already pouring more of the contents of the bottle into his glass and Eiji reached out again. Ash gently pushed his hand back, a quiet laugh emerging.

“Maybe you should slow down, lightweight.”

“I need to… not… slow… not drunk,” Eiji stammered. Words were becoming difficult. English was challenging even on a good day, but right now it was just about goddamn impossible to find the right words to say much of anything. Ash raised an eyebrow at him and Eiji sighed, defeated.

His head felt fuzzy and light. Maybe another glass was a bad idea after all, but like hell if he’d give Ash the satisfaction of knowing that. Instead, he leaned his head down onto the first, most comfortable spot he could find - in this case it happened to be Ash’s shoulder.

For his part, Ash didn’t flinch or pull back from Eiji’s sudden contact - rather, he seemingly leaned into it, a subtle welcome to Eiji’s touch. Perhaps the alcohol had lowered Ash’s inhibitions as well. Ash leaned back into the sofa, a careless recline that gave Eiji the opportunity to move his position from Ash’s shoulder to against his chest.

The soft fabric of Ash’s shirt was soothing against his skin, as was the steady rhythm of Ash’s heartbeat. Eiji listened to it.

“I wish it could always be like this,” Eiji sighed.

“Hmm?” Ash asked, a low rumble from his chest, almost like a purr.

“I wish things could always be easy like this,” Eiji said. The alcohol had loosened the grip his mind had over his words and he spoke freely. “Nothing to worry about. No guns, no fighting, no gangs. No pushing me away and pulling me back. None of this hesitation.” He paused after that thought, intoxicated as much by his proximity to Ash as he was the liquor. “I’m always wondering what you think, what you feel - you hide so much. But when we are like this, I wonder if you feel the same way I do. Love me the same way.”

Eiji stopped abruptly - perhaps he had spoken too freely. He lifted his eyes to Ash’s face, which seemed - well, not mad exactly, but maybe amused. Perhaps that was even worse.

“You really are drunk, Eiji,” Ash said finally after a moment. “You’ve been rambling in Japanese for at least a full minute.”

Japanese? Had he gotten so comfortable he’d failed to actually translate his thoughts as he was speaking them? No wonder it seemed like the words came to him so easily. He heaved his shoulders in a miserable sigh as Ash gazed down at him with bemused affection. Ash ran his fingers across Eiji’s tangled, disheveled hair, his mouth tilting into a smile.

“Time to get you to bed, I think - we’ll get the beer you like next time, okay? I don’t think whiskey agrees with you.”

Eiji resisted movement - it was too comfortable right here, against Ash. Ash nudged at him gently, but didn’t press, finally a sigh so soft it sounded contented.

“A few more minutes,” Eiji murmured against Ash’s chest. He wasn’t sure if he’d spoken in English this time either, but Ash seemed to take his meaning either way and relaxed again.

There were no more words and in the peaceful silence, Eiji felt his mind drifting, his eyes heavy. Maybe it was the soft lullaby of Ash’s breathing or the gentle touch of his hand against Eiji’s hair. Sleep was washing over him quickly and he didn’t fight it.

Eiji was adrift somewhere between consciousness and sleep and he heard Ash’s voice - it was unclear if it was from Ash himself or a conjuring of his dreams come to beckon him.

“It’s the same for me, you know.”

And Eiji slipped, fully, into sleep.


	4. Gizmo

“What will you do… when all of this is over?” Eiji mused, a dose of deja vu in a question he had asked so many times before. Despite so many crowded together in the small space, there was an uneasy quiet throughout the warehouse while Ash and the others took brief pause from their scheming. 

“You seem confident that I’ll have a choice.”

“I am optimistic.” Eiji’s expression formed a hard, stubborn line as he spoke. 

“What will you do when you’re back in Japan?” Ash asked, a pivot away from having to answer for himself. Eiji gave him a lingering look but didn’t challenge him. 

“I don’t know. I am not sure what’s there for me now. It has been a long time.”

“I’m sure Gizmo misses you a ton,” Ash chided him; Eiji frowned as soon as he said that. 

“For the last time, Ash, you make it sound like I have a pet gremlin back in Japan,” Eiji sighed, but his irritation was toothless and half a smile twitched at his mouth. 

“Sorry, remind me again. I’ll get it right next time.”

“Izumo. Really, Ash. You are the smartest person I know and you cannot remember the name of my town? I think maybe IQ test is flawed.”

Ash laughed but he felt a knot twist in his chest as he did. Izumo. Ash let the sound linger in his mind. Izumo. He tried to remember it. It was a part of Eiji, the place he had come from and Ash had a fascination with what it must have been like, how it could have shaped a person such as Eiji. But he still stumbled over it every time he tried to speak. 

It didn’t make sense. He listened in whenever Eiji and Ibe spoke, their voices a maze of unfamiliar sounds. He’d found his way into the language section in the library on more than one occasion. By all means, he should have been able to pick up on something by now - all of the common words and phrases Eiji used almost daily, certainly more than a few curses he’d passively absorbed. He’d even asked Ibe for some basics and done his best to remember the phrases he passed along. But as much as he hated to admit to it when Max was right, something just seemed to short-circuit in his mind when it came to Eiji and he faltered when he actually tried to form the words Eiji said in front of him in Japanese. 

Maybe it wasn’t that he couldn’t figure it out, but that he couldn’t let himself want to remember. If he did that, he’d be making a promise to himself, a hope for an impossible future. 

There was nothing Ash could guarantee to anyone now.

 

It was hours later when they argued again. Ash expected an echo of the same well-tread insistence from Eiji, so his compliance, his willingness to stay behind and away from the danger, was a surprise. Something had shifted. They were reaching the end and they both knew it. One way or another. 

When he and Eiji looked forward, they saw different things - Eiji saw a new beginning, a future for himself, a future for Ash. Ash could only see the end of the road. But Eiji was only partly wrong, because there was a future there for him - he was a tree of branching possibilities, a thousand futures he could reach out and take. Ash could only be what he already was and the longer he held on, the more Eiji’s options faded. Being with Ash only led down one path.

“You think I will wish you are not with me? Because you are bad news?” Eiji asked, acknowledging doubts Ash hadn’t quite vocalized. “I’m telling you, that will never happen. I don’t want to lose you.”

They had reached this point before, this clumsy dance of ‘what if’ and ‘maybe’. But something had shifted. 

“For you, I would do anything,” Eiji said, and while his voice was controlled, Ash could read the desperation in his eyes. 

Ash thought about Izumo; he thought about Eiji returning to it like the missing piece of a puzzle. He thought about Eiji returning there, alone, a puzzle piece whose shape had undoubtedly changed over the past two years, no longer quite fitting into the same spaces he once occupied. It was almost unbearable to imagine. But maybe Ash could go - even just once - just to see it for himself and sate his curiosity. 

So he allowed himself to imagine, instead, Izumo accepting both of them with open arms, leaving New York only a distant memory. He thought about the terrifying disorientation of a new place, so unlike the streets he knew so well, a language he couldn’t speak, a culture he didn’t understand. He thought about a place without the guns or the violence he took for granted now, a place where absolutely no one knew him. Ash looked at Eiji and considered a future where Eiji would have to navigate for the two of them, where Ash wouldn’t have all of the advantages and would have to rely on him to guide them through. Vulnerable, with “big brother Eiji” able to take care of everything. 

He let himself consider it, just this once. 

“Maybe you can start by teaching me Japanese,” Ash said, and the words lifted out of him like a weight. For the first time, perhaps that he could ever remember, he considered the possibility of an open pathway forward instead of a dead end road. 

Eiji’s face shone and he formed those same words he always had but now they were an invitation. Ash repeated the sounds; they were coaxed more easily out of him with Eiji’s guidance. They seemed less foreign on his tongue when Eiji was teaching him. Izumo. Ohayou. Eiji wouldn’t make such a bad teacher - maybe that’s what he would have become if he had stayed in Japan instead of getting wrapped up with things in New York. Maybe that’s what he’d still become when he returned. Maybe Ash would have a chance to find out what path he would choose to walk. 

Izumo. Ohayou.

It took less than a second for Eiji’s body language to change, for his posture to tense and the excited light in his eyes to burn with panic. 

“Ash!” he called out, and Ash felt Eiji’s hands against him, pushing him away. The deafening and familiar sound of a gunshot. Ash was too relaxed, too slow, too vulnerable to do anything but see Eiji’s body fall heavy to the ground while red blossomed from the front of his shirt. 

And all the pathways forward collapsed around him.


	5. Sing

Sing learned Japanese.

At first it was by happenstance - Eiji’s return to New York was like a supernova, sudden and burning with white-hot grief. It was more difficult to communicate with him than usual, half of his words swallowed up by the tremulous crying and most of the others never seeming to make it through in English. Sing struggled to remember any of the few Japanese words he’d heard Eiji speak and tried to repeat them - anything to simply break through. He finally found something: it’s okay. It wasn’t, of course, but Sing kept saying it until Eiji was able to calm down enough to hear him. One word to anchor them in their hopeless situation and they both were able to cling to it.

Without Ash, Eiji was adrift. There was nothing left for him in this changed New York landscape, but he refused to leave anyway. “I’ll figure something out,” he told Sing, with a weary, faraway look, once the crying had exhausted him to the point of numbness. Sing wasn’t certain Eiji could figure anything out in this state, but when Ibe finally returned to Japan for good, Eiji remained in New York. So Sing offered to let Eiji to stay with him, just for a while, until he was ready to go back home.

He wasn’t sure if either of them believed Eiji would ever return to Japan, but as the time passed, neither one of them dared to bring it up any longer.

They settled into new lives: Eiji found some release in photographing the city while Sing found himself at the divide of the loyalties that bound him and the violence that brought him here to begin with. School became a welcome distraction from whatever obligations called to him. When he started, it was recommended he take a few language courses - it was good for conducting business, they reasoned. It seemed unnecessary, Sing already spoke English and Chinese. Still, as a compromise, Japanese seemed like a logical choice. Eiji was still staying with him then, or maybe Sing had begun to stay with Eiji, the line had already become blurry and indeterminate. Eiji started to adapt to New York permanently, and Sing was beginning to accept that the point where Eiji was ready to go back home to Japan would perhaps never come.

Sing wasn’t sure those he left behind in Japan had accepted it yet. Eiji still spoke with Ibe regularly, his mother and sister occasionally. Those conversations were quiet, even-toned, and while Sing couldn’t pick up all the meaning in what he overheard, the intent was clear - he was trying to explain a choice that he couldn’t quite put into words of any language.

When Eiji asked him about his choice to learn Japanese, more curious than anything, Sing told him that it made the most sense - he’d have a partner to practice with, after all. Eiji gave him a kind, wistful smile and agreed. He told Sing he would appreciate having a friend to talk to.

Their chats in Japanese were short and simple at first. Sing struggled with the mechanics and the grammar and Eiji would only smile and gently correct him, always kind and patient. He found himself thinking back on every stinging remark he’d said or heard about Eiji’s own competence in English with regret. It was so difficult to be understood even with every resource available - how much Eiji must have struggled those first years in New York, when everything that was in his heart needed to be translated twice.

It was Sing who first brought up Ash in their conversations. It had been three years. They hadn’t spoken about him since the days after his death, not to each other. Eiji was surprisingly receptive to Sing’s superficial reminiscing, spoken in clumsy Japanese. Maybe remembering Ash was already so emotionally draining that it was easier for Eiji to remember this way. Perhaps it was because Sing’s skill was still limited enough that he knew that these conversations would be brief and uneventful.

It was a quiet afternoon when Sing walked into the kitchen and saw him there. Eiji was seated at the table with a cup of tea that might have been steaming with warmth hours ago but now sat there untouched. He was staring out the window, a familiar distance in his eyes, a sadness that waxed and waned like the moon, hidden by shadows but never really gone.

Sing sat next to him, the scraping of the chair against the floorboards waking Eiji up enough to muster a smile. Once, his smile was like staring into the sun but now it was like watching a light be switched on, bright and warm and artificial.

“Sing. I did not hear you,” Eiji said in Japanese. They spoke it almost as frequently as English now at home, their home, the place that was the closest approximation between where they were from and where they needed to be.

“I hope I didn’t disturb you.”

“Not at all. I am just… thinking.” There was a long pause, a stretch of oppressive silence.

“Hey Eiji,” he said, his voice quiet. “You and Ash. Were things… I mean, were you two…?” the question lingered between them, unfinished but understood. Eiji’s eyes were dark and clouded with memory. Sing wasn’t sure why he’d asked it. He already knew the answer. But Eiji had never talked about it and maybe he needed to, just once.

“No,” Eiji said, in English. It was a lie, he was sure, but one that Eiji needed Sing to believe.

Silence fell, heavy, on top of them once again.

Sing felt responsible, of course. He was inextricably part of this grief, and they moved through it together, Sing dragging Eiji forward any time he tried to linger in it for too long. They were tied together now because Sing had delivered that letter, because he had been the one to identify Ash’s body, because Eiji had come back to New York and found him first. Their souls were bound, not in the way that Ash and Eiji’s were, but with a murkier, desperate kind of devotion.

It wasn’t enough. It never would be. But if Eiji ever did make it back to Japan, he deserved to have a human by his side instead of a ghost.

Sing learned Japanese because Ash never got the chance to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't necessarily ship Sing/Eiji but their relationship in Garden of Light is fascinating. One thing that stayed with me was how much it emphasizes that Sing spoke Japanese, but never really explains why. That detail haunted me enough that I wanted to write something about it.


End file.
